The present invention relates to a method and tool for forming picots, sometimes referred to as prairie points.
In many quilting, sewing, scrapbooking and other applications, it is common to provide decorative borders comprising generally triangular shaped elements formed of fabric. Such triangular shaped elements are commonly referred to as “picots” or “prairie points” and will hereinafter be referred to as “picots”. The object into which the picots are being incorporated (i.e., the quilt, clothing, scrapbook, etc.) will be hereinafter referred to as the “work”.
Traditionally, picots are formed by manually folding a square piece of fabric so as to form a triangle. In one method, a square piece of fabric is folded along a diagonal line between opposite corners, then folded in half again perpendicular to the original fold to create a folded triangle with all cut edges along one edge. In another method, a square piece of fabric is folded in half forming a rectangle, then the corners at the folds are brought to the center of the opposite long edge forming a triangle with folds meeting down the center and all cut edges along one edge. Once formed, the picot is typically ironed or pressed to impart defined edges and maintain its shape and one side of the picot is sewn or otherwise attached to one or more edges of the work. A succession of picots along an edge of the work provides a decorative border for the work. The most esthetically pleasing (and therefore desirable) decorative edge is one in which the picots are uniform in size and shape.
Manually forming picots in the manner described above is time consuming and often results in a lack of uniformity. Lack of uniformity is caused by the edges of the fabric not being aligned properly when folded and ironed, causing gaps between edges of the folded fabric, irregular or uneven shapes, or differently sized picots. In such cases, the decorative effect of the border is lessened by the irregular and uneven picots forming the border.
In addition, manually holding the fold in a picot during the ironing process is difficult and potentially dangerous. A steam iron, which is the preferred method for holding a fold when using cotton fabrics, cannot be used due to the risk of burns from steam from the iron. To address that problem, it has been known to use a metal ruler or other scale to hold the fold while ironing, but the metal itself may become heated and burn the user. Metallic pins have been used to hold the fold while ironing, but this method often results in misalignment of the edges during the ironing process and the pins leave imprints once removed, causing the picot to have to be ironed a second time to remove the imprints.